Stephan Weil has been Prime Minister of Lower Saxony since February 2013 and Chairman of the SPD Lower Saxony since January 2012. (Image source: Lower Saxony State Chancellery/Kai-Uwe Knoth)
Some parts of Germany are under water, although experts say the amount of rainfall has hardly changed. Reason to demand compulsory natural hazard insurance again. “It’s taking too long for us to come to an agreement with the federal and state governments at this point,” says Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil. His state’s penetration of natural hazard insurance is well below the national average.
The proportion of insurance customers who have insured their house against natural damage (earthquake, landslide, flood, snow pressure) in addition to residential building damage such as fire, lightning strikes, tap water and storms has increased steadily in recent years. The national average is 54 percent, in Lower Saxony it is only 32 percent.
In several federal states, helpers have been fighting against the masses of water for days. Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited the areas affected by the floods, including in Saxony-Anhalt. The situation is particularly tense in Lower Saxony. The sandbags are running out there – at least our own supply. With the exception of a small remainder, the reserve of around 1.9 million sandbags stored since the start of the flood situation before Christmas has now been retrieved, the responsible state agency for water management, coastal and nature conservation (NLWKN) told the dpa news agency.
Prime Minister Stephan Weil said that it was not yet possible to estimate the damage because large parts of the infrastructure were still under water. The country wants to start assessing the damage as quickly as possible. Weil was open to an emergency fund for particularly affected citizens and companies – similar to the flood in 2017. At that time, the state had provided funds for equity benefits amounting to ten million euros. Weil left it open how high the payments could be this time.
He admitted that there are currently better insurance offers than there were in 2017. In any case, the Prime Minister is clear: “Private provision must be significantly increased.” That is why he once again advocated compulsory natural hazard insurance. Homeowners are currently not automatically insured against natural damage, such as earthquakes, snow pressure and floods, as part of their building or household contents insurance. You have to actively book extensions, which can be very expensive depending on the region.
Recently, the President of the General Association of the German Insurance Industry (GDV), Norbert Rollinger, expressed the fear that insurance premiums in the building sector could double in the next few years, VWtoday reported.
According to the current GDV natural hazard balance sheet, property insurance accounted for damages amounting to 3.6 billion euros in 2023: 2.7 billion for damages from storms and hail and 900 million euros from other natural hazards such as floods as a result of heavy rain. The loss balance here is slightly below average. For motor insurers, however, 2023 was above average with around 465,000 claims totaling 1.3 billion euros. The long-term average here is 1.1 billion euros.
Author: VW editorial team
2024-01-05 00:06:07
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